Oh No It Isn't! (novel): Difference between revisions

{{Infobox Story SMW

|image          = Oh No It Isn't.jpg

|series         = [[Virgin New Adventures]]

|range          = Virgin New Adventures

|number in range = 62

|number         = 1

|main character = [[Bernice Summerfield]]

|featuring       = [[Wolsey]], [[Menlove Stokes|Stokes]], [[Arthur Candy|Candy]], [[Ferdinand Archduke|Archduke]], [[Joseph (Oh No It Isn't!)|Joseph]]

|enemy          = [[Grel Master]], [[Greater One]]

|setting        = [[Perfecton (planet)|Perfecton]], [[autumn]] [[2593]]

|writer          = Paul Cornell

|cover          = [[John Sullivan]]

|publisher       = Virgin Books

|release date   = 1 May 1997

|format         = Paperback Book, 249 Pages

|isbn           = ISBN 0-426-20507-3

|prev            = The Dying Days (novel)

|next           = Dragons' Wrath (novel)

'''''Oh No It Isn't!''''' was the first novel of the "second season" of the [[Virgin New Adventures]].

== Publisher's summary ==

''"The King's balls get bigger every year!"''

[[Bernice Summerfield|Bernice Surprise Summerfield]] is settling into her new job as Professor of Archaeology at [[St Oscar's University]] on the planet [[Dellah]] — one of the most prestigious centres of learning in the [[Mutter's Spiral|Milky Way]]. She wants to put her past, especially her failed [[marriage]], behind her.

So she's glad when she gets the chance to take her tutorial group to investigate the lost civilisation of [[‎Perfecton (planet)|Perfecton]]. Three whole weeks of archaeological research in the field. The perfect way to forget your worries.

That [[Menlove Stokes]], Professor of Applied Art, and various other academics would be along for the ride. That vicious alien marauders would decide to explore the planet at the same time. And that a reactivated [[Perfecton (species)|Perfecton]] device would plunge her into a situation that can only be described as — [[pantomime|panto]].

== Chapter titles ==

# Beauty and Bernice

# A Whole New Ball Game

# Just Deserts and Deeper Plots, and Deadly Danger Looming... Lots!

# Raiders of the Seven Dwarves

# 'Scuse Me While I Rip the Sky

# A Cat in Hell's Chance

[[Bernice Summerfield|Benny]], now holder of the [[Watkinson Chair of Archaeology]] and [[Rector]] of [[Garland College]] at [[St Oscar's University]] on [[Dellah]], is due to take a number of [[student]]s to [[Perfecton (planet)|Perfecton]], a [[planet]] soon to be destroyed by a [[supernova]] and which has been under [[quarantine]] since the mysterious disappearance of the [[Perfecton (species)|Perfectons]]. Before leaving, she agrees to read through [[Ferdinand Archduke|Professor Archduke]]'s [[thesis]] on [[20th century]] [[theatre]] as a favour after he finds [[Wolsey]] and ignores two men who come looking for her, claiming to be on a mission from God.

Accompanied by several other members of staff, Benny and her students travel to Perfecton on the ''[[Winton]]'' and begin their [[excavation]]. After several days, Benny invites one of her students, [[Michael Doran]], to her rooms for [[brandy]] due to her feeling undesirable following her [[divorce]] from [[Jason Kane|Jason]], whom she misses, and downloads Professor Archduke's paper to read before deciding that it will make her seem old. The two men on a mission from God enter instead of Michael and a [[Grel]] [[spacecraft|ship]] attacks, hitting the ''Winton'' before it is seemingly destroyed by a [[missile]].

Academics [[Menlove Stokes|Stokes]], [[Otterbland]], [[Ranjit Singh|Singh]], [[Hettie Bonistall|Hettie]], [[Lucinda Pargiter|Lucinda]], [[Epstein]], [[Owl (Oh No It Isn't!)|Owl]], [[A. J. Blandish|Blandish]], [[A. J. Wagstaff|Wagstaff]], [[Warrinder]], [[Janes (Oh No It Isn't!)|Janes]] and [[Farouk (Oh No It Isn't!)|Farouk]] are outside when the ''Winton'' is attacked and flee from the Grel craft to the Perfecton city. There, they fall into a hole and meet [[Thooo]], the last of the Perfectons, who explains that the Perfectons' guns transport their targets into [[the Green]], a world which they had hopes to escape to in order to survive the supernova.

At midnight, Benny's clothes turn into rags and leaves, meeting a [[horse]] inside of which the two men on a mission from God have been hiding from the narrative. Her [[Fairy Godfather]] appears and Benny wishes to see the unseen people to whom the Fairy Godfather keeps talking, allowing her to see a huge audience of Perfectons and leave the stage. She arrives in her bedroom from when she was a child and finds an alien control unit which turns into a magic [[ring]] when she takes it back onto the stage. After [[hypnosis|hypnotising]] Wolsey, she realises that they are all inside Archduke's manuscript and fetches a [[genie]]'s [[lamp]] from a [[cave]] for the [[Vizier (Oh No It Isn't!)|Vizier]].

 

After finding the lamp, the Grel take it from them and are subsequently destroyed by the genie, which then breaks the [[fourth wall]] and allows the audience of Perfectons to enter the world. She takes the lamp to her chambers, having determined that this was the narrative before the Grel's interference, and is told by the men in the pantomime horse that they were sent by the computer of the [[Worldsphere]] to ask her to join the [[Tiny But Interesting Interest Group]] as an agent of [[the People]]. She agrees to consider this and learns from the leader of the Perfectons that the missile was theirs and was intended to make a ship [[Dimensional transcendentalism|dimensionally transcendental]] for them to make their new home.

 

The genie, representing the original programme, intends on destroying this world of pantomime, which was accidentally created when the missile pierced Archduke's thesis, and restoring Perfecton. Benny tricks it into returning to its lamp and rubs her magic ring which, actually being a control unit accidentally sent into the Green by Stokes, summons Stokes, who unwittingly reminds her of the magic words which will take them back to Rupert's castle. The Perfectons try to kill Benny to prevent her from putting the magic lamp on its pedastal, but Wolsey holds them off long enough for her to do so.

 

 

* [[A. J. Wagstaff]]

 

* [[Bernice Summerfield|Benny]] accidentally gives [[Michael Doran]] a copy of ''[[Make Dangerous Love to Me - The Erotic Poetry of Carla Tsampiras]]''.

* Benny is still working on (and trying to get out of writing) her sequel to ''[[Down Among the Dead Men]]'' with the working title ''[[So Vast a Pile]]''.

 

 

* Benny has the name [[Dick Whittington]] in the panto reality.

* [[God (The Also People)|God]] sends members of the [[Tiny But Interesting Interest Group]] to contact Benny about becoming an agent for them.

 

 

* The [[Perfecton (species)|Perfectons]] are small blue humanoids.

 

 

 

* Wolsey confirms [[Bernice Summerfield|Benny]]'s suspicions about human-[[cat]] relations when he refers to her as "servant-woman".

* This is the first novel published by [[Virgin Books|Virgin]] following their loss of the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' licence (it returned to the BBC and they began publishing their [[BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures|Eighth Doctor Adventures]] and [[BBC Past Doctor Adventures|Past Doctor Adventures]]). As such in this range no direct references are made to [[BBC]]-copyrighted elements such as [[the Doctor]] or the [[TARDIS]]. However, any characters and other elements could be licensed from their creators, as such multiple characters and other elements that previously appeared in other [[Virgin New Adventures|New Adventures]] appear in this novel and the rest of the [[Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures|BNA range]].

 

* [[Bernice Summerfield|Benny]] was taken to [[Dellah]] by the [[Eighth Doctor]] at the end of ''[[The Dying Days (novel)|The Dying Days]]''.

 

* [http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rsmith43/cloister/ohno.htm The Cloister Library: '''Oh No It Isn't!''']

== Footnotes ==

[[Category:BNA novels]]

[[Category:Bernice Summerfield novels]]